Invisible Sparks
by Lomonaaeren
Summary: HPDM preslash, oneshot. Auror Eric Latham watches as the two newest members of Socrates Corps meet for the first time as partners. First in the Cloak and Dagger series. COMPLETE.


**Title: **Invisible Sparks

**Disclaimer: **J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.

**Warnings: **Language, OC point of view, references to violence.

**Rating: **PG

**Pairing: **Harry/Draco preslash.

**Summary: **Socrates Auror Eric Latham has been looking forward to the meeting between the Socrates Corps's two newest Aurors.

**Wordcount: **2000

**Author's Notes: **A short piece set in the Cloak and Dagger universe, where Harry and Draco are Auror partners working a variety of fairly dark cases. This takes place before any of the others, so reading it won't spoil anything else.

**Invisible Sparks**

Auror Eric Latham knew not to put much stock in rumors or stories or archetypes. The people _he _knew who used stories to their advantage were all twisted, all obsessed with a symbol they had chosen for themselves that supposedly told the whole of their lives, all spinning tales and fables for their companions to live on and to believe in as they committed torture, murder, rape, and any other crime they could think of.

But not believing in them wasn't the same thing as lacking an aesthetic appreciation of them. And he had a _very _aesthetic appreciation of stories like the meeting between the Hero and the Villain.

Which explained why he was at his desk at eight in the morning, head bowed in pretended studiousness over paperwork that he could have completed with his eyes closed and his wand tied behind his back.

To watch the Hero and the Villain, now both members of the darkest corps in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, meet.

Eric glanced from side to side, absently making sure that everything looked as it was supposed to look so that no one could _accuse_ him of being there simply to watch. The two new desks stood in their places, side-by-side and up against the far wall of the room. The Socrates Corps, unlike most of the other Aurors in the Department, didn't have private offices or cubicles. If a twisted got away from them while under arrest, they had learned the hard way that providing hiding places was a stupid idea.

So the room was open, and large, and the windows on the walls, although as artificial as any others in the buried Ministry, still reflected the weather outside more closely than most of them did. There was even a skylight, although it poured sunshine regardless of the weather. The pale brown desks were regulation, all exactly the same length and width, and so were the chairs behind them and the drawers in them and the hooks on the wall where robes hung. Eric had added file-holders of his sister's design to his own, and a few others had personal touches: photographs, maps, awards, a crumpled child's drawing.

Eric let his eyes linger on the new desks, and wondered what sort of mark Potter and Malfoy would make.

He looked up when he heard the footsteps, and then down again, lest he appear too eager. Yes, he thought, that would be Potter coming. He'd watched the man striding around on shared crime scenes before-Socrates Corps didn't always have twisted to pursue, and so they could work with other Aurors-and no one else walked like he did, that confident, _I could have destroyed the world if I wanted to _walk. So the Hero arrived first. Of course.

Potter stepped into the room.

At the same moment, the other door beyond the desks, the one that Eric hadn't thought to watch because most new Corps members didn't know about it, opened, and Malfoy came through.

So that was _it_, the moment when their eyes locked and they each realized that they would have to work with the other. They wouldn't have been told of their twin promotions, Eric knew. They weren't official members of the Corps when it happened, and most of the Aurors outside Socrates didn't know exactly who was assigned to it, or for how long.

He leaned back, confident now that neither would notice him, and watched them stare at each other.

Potter recovered first from that silent explosion between them, and prowled forwards a step or two, as if to stake his claim to one of the two desks Malfoy had halted beside. Malfoy hesitated, then inclined his head mockingly and moved back. One couldn't say he retreated, though, Eric decided. His eyes were fastened on Potter and his hands trailed down the nearest desk, as if he would scrape wood shavings off and mark it his.

"Fancy meeting you here," Potter said. His voice was low enough that Eric was tempted to lean forwards to hear better, but that would make them notice him for sure. Neither had gained this position by being unobservant. He ducked his head further over the paperwork instead and concentrated on signing his name with the neatest hand he'd ever used.

"Not much of a surprise, meeting you," Malfoy said, although the way his eyes had widened and stiffness had flushed through his body told Eric that it really was, at least for him. "Always knew that they would decide they needed the Chosen One in the most prestigious corps in the Aurors sooner or later."

Potter reacted in an odd way. Eric had been expecting a sneer, sarcasm, perhaps even a punch, although according to reports he'd perused before agreeing to allow them into Socrates, Potter had never got violent when he argued with other Aurors. But Eric hadn't reckoned on a smile or the way that Potter turned smartly away from Malfoy, as if uninterested in him, walking to his own desk.

From the expression on Malfoy's face, he hadn't expected it, either. He leaned forwards and asked casually, "So, whose cock did you suck to get here?"

Potter gave him another flashing smile over his shoulder, said, "Not yours. Although you _wish _it was," and sat down in his chair as though testing that it would bear his weight.

Malfoy tensed on the verge of drawing his wand, then. Eric recognized the flight of his hand to his pocket. Eric sighed softly behind his hands. He had always known that watching people could be exciting, but he didn't think he'd ever drawn this level of it from a relatively restrained interaction.

Potter didn't look up or seem to notice, though Eric was sure he had. He leaned back in the chair, glanced up at the ceiling, nodded, and then stood again and moved around the desk to look out the window.

"You haven't yet noticed that we're underground, Potter?" Malfoy had recovered enough to pull his hand away from his wand, but his voice still had a sharp edge instead of the teasing one that Eric thought he was trying to pull off.

"Oh, I have," Potter said. "These are the only windows I've seen that convinced me we were aboveground, though. Most of the others look like fakes."

Eric opened his mouth, ready to proudly volunteer that they _were _the only windows in the Department of Magical Law Enforcement that did that, and then shut it. Malfoy had changed again the minute Potter's back was turned. He had a tight frown on his face, but not an upset one, Eric thought; it was more bemused. He had leaned forwards slightly on the balls of his feet, eyes fastened on Potter's back as if he thought it would open and expand into wings.

Eric shuddered. He had seen a twisted do that, not long ago. It was an experience that he never wanted to repeat, particularly the blood flying everywhere that had coated them.

Potter turned around, and Malfoy changed his expression in an instant, slapping his hand down on his desk. "I hope that you never come near enough to me to necessitate a cleaning charm, Potter," he muttered.

"Oh, you know some?" Potter asked, now glancing covertly at Eric's paper-holder as if he wanted to copy the design. Once again, Eric pretended to be busy with paperwork. "I thought house-elves did all that sort of thing for you."

"You haven't kept up with the news, I see." Malfoy must have practiced for ages to fix that particular bland look on his face and keep his voice from doing more than curling with slight sarcasm. "My parents have decided that I am not welcome in the Manor any longer, which means having to learn to deal without house-elves."

Potter blinked slowly. Eric raised an eyebrow. That was a _recovering-my-balance_ slow blink, not an _Oh-really? _slow blink.

"I didn't know that," Potter said. "I'm sure I would have read-" He shook his head. "No, it doesn't make sense," he muttered, as if conducting an inaudible argument with someone in his head. "Why would they kick you out of the family and tell you that you couldn't return?"

"There's a difference between being kicked out of the house and being blasted off the family tapestry," Malfoy said. He stood in profile to Eric, but that was enough for Eric to see the ticking muscle at the side of his jaw.

"Not to pure-bloods, there isn't." Potter's voice had softened.

Malfoy flung around to face him, this time with his hand resting openly on his wand. Potter watched him, hands at his sides, face more open than Eric had seen it since he entered the room. Did Potter feel better about himself, or about the situation, when he could feel compassion for someone else? Eric frowned. He hoped that wouldn't interfere with the way that Potter had to pursue, and kill, the twisted. Socrates Corps nearly never brought in their prey alive.

"How would you know anything about it?" Malfoy, with what looked to Eric to be iron control, kept from inflecting any word in that sentence.

"A lot of the wizards I chased and protected were pure-bloods," Potter said. "I watched. I looked. I listened."

"That's not the same thing as _hearing_."

"No," Potter said.

The moment continued to stretch and hold between them. Eric leaned back in his chair, sure they wouldn't notice him now, fascinated. He could practically see them both with fires burning in their hands, invisible fires of brains and talent and determination, shedding sparks that they were both used to marking them out as exceptional.

Except that, now, their sparks were as bright as the ones from the other fire, and mingled.

They didn't know what to do about it.

"It was because I decided to become an Auror," Malfoy said at last, when Eric had thought their fires might become hot enough to burn down the building. "They couldn't accept that I-turned traitor, as they put it. The Aurors arrested them and humiliated them, and they've never forgotten it."

Potter nodded. "Thank you for telling me. I think partners should be able to trust each other at least that much."

"_Partners_?" Malfoy's head tossed up, his neck quivering like a horse strung to a heavy cart.

"Why else do you think the desks are so close together?" Potter gave him a wry smile and turned away. "It seems that you look, but you don't always _see._"

Malfoy continued to stare, and for a moment more Eric thought he would take his wand out and blast a hole through Potter's back. But then he snorted and turned, walking towards the main door. Eric ducked his head over his desk. There was every reason to think that Malfoy and Potter hadn't noticed him spying on them. They'd spoken quietly, after all, and they didn't know about the room's remarkable acoustics or that Eric was an equally remarkable reader of body language.

Malfoy didn't pause in front of his desk, but he did breathe out, as he passed, "Think about all the curses that can still the tongues of gossips."

Eric stared up at him, but he had already walked out the door. He turned back towards Potter, and found a pair of deadly green eyes fixed on him. Potter nodded once, smiling in the same way Eric had seen werewolves do it, and then turned back to pulling his possessions out of a shrunken trunk.

Eric shuddered, and returned hastily to his paperwork-for real, this time. _At least they'll make excellent partners._


End file.
